LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.? 



I .^e£r J££ 5..S. 9* I 

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f UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, f 



Habitual Drinking 



AN"!) 



Its Remedy. 



BY )/ 

REV. GEORGE A. LOFTON. 

Pastor Fir<t Baptist Chnrch, Memphis, Tenn. 






4 Woe unto them that riseth up early in the morning, that thru may follow 
strong (frink; that continue all night till wint inflames them," — [paiah v. 11, 






MEMPHIS, TEXN.: 
SOt'THEKN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCU.TV, 

1874. 



'U« . 



Entered according to Act of Congreess, in the year of our Lord, 
Eighteen Hundred and Seventy-Four, by 

GEO. A. LOFTON, 

in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, District 
of Columbia. 



CONTENTS. 



PART FIRST. 



THE EVIL OF HABITUAL DRINKING. 

CHAPTER I. 

Prevalence and Magnitude of the Evil, - - - - 9 

CHAPTER II. 

NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THE EVIL. 

I. Physically Considered: — 1. The "Shock." 2. "Co- 
ma." 3. "Dead drunk." 4. "Intoxication." 5. 
"Alcoholismus Chronicus." 6. "Delirium Ebrosi- 
um." 7. "Delirium Tremens." 8. "Oinomania," 14 

CHAPTER III 

NANURE AND CHARACTER OF THE EVIL — CONTINUED. 

II. Mentally Considered: — 1. The Intellect, 2. The 
Will. 3. The Moral Emotions. 4. The Animal 
Passions, 21 



5. 

CHAPTER IV. 

NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THE EVIL — CONTIMI " 

III. .> nsidered, ------- 2'. J 

(■RAFTER V. 

THE INEVITABLE RESULTS OF THE EVIL. 

I. In Time, — 1. Upon the Individual. 2. Upon 
Family. 3. Upon the Community. 4. Uj 
Government. 5. Dpon the Church, - 

CHAPTER VI. 

THE INEVITABLE RESULTS OF THE EVIL CONTINUl 

IE In. Eternity. — Upon the Drinker himself. Upon 
the sriver of drink. ---------- 50 



PART SECOND. 



THE REMEDY FOE HABITUAL DRINKING. 
CHAPTER I. 

IX WHAT THE REMEDY DOES SOT CONSIST. 

I. T>ot in pledges to self or anj se, - - .- hi 



Contents. 



II. Xot in joining temperance, or similar institu- 
tions, - ------- 61 

III. 2sot in joining the church of Christ, or some 
other religious society, 63 

CHAPTER II. 

IN WHAT THE REMEDY DOES CONSIST. 

I. In the immediate study of his spiritual condition 
and the plan of his redemption, by the inebriate 
himself, 69 

CHAPTER III. 

IN WHAT THE REMEDY DOES CONSIST— CONTINUED. 

II. In the formation of a purpose to abandon the 
habit by the help of God, without promises, - - 76 

III. In the selection of one or more pious, godly 
friends, who, like brothers, will help the inebri- 
ate's weakness and bear his infirmities, - 79 

CHAPTER IV. 

IN WHAT THE REMEDY DOES CONSIST — CONTINUED. 

IV. In the abandonment of every evil association, 84 

V. In searching the Scriptures diligently and per- 
petually, 87 

VI. In seeking "Jesus only," as the goal of all our 

efforts and hopes, r r r r - r - ? r - 88 



VI 



Contents. 



CHAPTER V. 

IN WHAT THE REMEDY DOES CONSIST — CONCLUDED. 

VII. Finally, in following Christ, 92 

Conclusion, 96 



sacs*! 







PREFACE. 



This little volume is published in order to meet 
a great demand of the subject discussed, not 
heretofore sufficiently impressed upon the public. 
I mean, especially, the Remedy proposed, as the 
only cure for "confirmed drunkenness." The first 
part of the work, which treats of the Evil of " Habit- 
ual Drinking," is but one of thousands of similar 
efforts to awaken serious consideration upon the 
subject, and to lead the mind to contemplate more 
effectually the REMEDY. 

The author risks his effort against popular criti- 
cism and prejudice, not because of his confidence in 
any merit of the production, but, above all, for the 
good he hopes to accomplish. If one soul is saved 
from ruin and eternal death, he will be more than 
repaid for his trouble and expense. In fact, this 
effort is the result of a resolution passed by several 
temperance councils at Cold Water, Miss., upon the 
occasion of a lecture delivered, by request, upon the 



PART FIRST. 



THE EVIL OF HABITUAL DRIKKING. 



* 



* UR theme is Habitual Drinking, not drunk- 
||| enness merely. There are many forms of 
fWL the alcoholic evil which never culminate in 
absolute drunkenness. Our aim is to reach the 
abuse, not the proper use of alcohol. We would 
not overreach the truth, nor enter into a fanatical 
and unqualified condemnation of the legitimate and 
scriptural employment, for good of any and every 
agent and instrument bestowed upon man for his 
happiness. Paul says, "I know and am persuaded 
by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean of 
itself: but to him that esteemeth anything (indiffer- 
ent) to be unclean, to him it is unclean" There is 
unquestionably a medical and healthful use of alco- 
hol, though, perhaps, not an indispensable use, in 



xii Introduction. 



most cases where it is needed. In most cases, 
however, something else might do equally as well, 
or better. But of this hereafter. 

Notwithstanding this conservative view, alcohol, 
like many other agents for good, is susceptible, 
above all other things, of the greatest evil. In all 
cases, then, whether by example to others, or by 
legitimate use to ourselves, where there is the least 
danger of contracting, or of not breaking, the fear- 
ful habit of Drinking, we would urge TOTAL AB- 
STINENCE, as the only step to the only Remedy, 
which can secure safety to the victims of this other- 
wise fatal malady. The evils of alcohol unquestion- 
ably overbalance all its good; and it were better for 
mankind, to-day, that there was not a drop of it 
upon earth — even if there were no other remedy, for 
fleshly ills, comparable to it in excellence. To the 
task of exposing the evils of Alcohol, the First Part 
of this work is devoted ; to the Remedy, the latter. 



HABITUAL DRINKING 

AND ITS REMEDY. 




CHAPTER I. 

PREVALENCE AND MAGNITUDE OF THE EVIL. 

HE abusive use of alcohol, in some of its 
varied and subtle forms, is almost univer- 
sally prevalent. The magnitude and the 
turpitude of the evil are commensurate with 
its prevalence. In the city, the town, the village, 
the hamlet; in the country, and in almost every 
family, this hydra-headed monster, DRENTI, stalks 
with impartial pace, breathes with venomed breath, 
and burns with baleful eye into the hearts and hab- 
itations of men. Read the most partial statistics 
of DRIXK, and pause and wonder ! Behold the 
8250,000,000 annually wasted in the consumption of 



12 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

approved methods and facilities of progress to his 
fiendish ends. Thus he makes — as far as he is able — 
evil keep pace with the good; nay, often outstrip 
the latter in what the world calls approved and pro- 
gressive development. 

Satan dreads and hates light. He ever seeks to 
pervert, counterfeit, or extinguish it. He usually 
comes as an "angel of light;" and like the "False 
Prophet of Khorassan," he ever wears a silvery veil 
to mask his hellish deformities and designs. Alco- 
hol is his all-potent, universal agent — full of fascina- 
tion and ideal charms — the invariable subversion of 
reason and a deadly potion to conscience. By this 
Satan deludes the w r orld; and against its own judg- 
ment and hope and desire, dooms it to perpetual 
defeat, ruin and despair. In spite of palpable and 
conscious ruin, he by this agency leads man ever on, 
in helpless but willful madness, to utter destruction ! 
And it is not until the last scene that Satan, like 
Mokanna, lifts his delusive veil at the drunkard's 
"banquet of death," and with "grinning mockery," 
passes the parting cup to his fated victims, who, 
while they return his fiendish look in vain, still 



Prevalence and Magnitude of the Evil. 13 

madly quaff his burning poison to the dregs. Truly, 
" At the last it biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an 
adder." 

Especially on America has the blight of this evil 
fallen with deadly fatality. It catches even the once 
provident foreigner who lands upon our shores. 
The facilities of life, the liberty of the country and 
the laxity of our social and moral systems, perhaps, 
account for it. Of all people we are the most blest, 
the most free, the most easy. Why should we turn 
these boons into licentiousness? No land beneath 
the sun is so fair, so flourishing, and affords such 
prospects for future greatness and glory; and yet 
we seem to be threatened with the national doom 
of a drunkard's curse. Who can say our calamities 
have not sprung already from this source? Unques- 
tionably, alcohol has lead, and will lead, to our de- 
moralization and ruin, unless the growth of the 
monster is checked. 



CHAPTER n. 

NATURE AHD CHARACTER OF THE EVIL. 
I. 

'^j^HYSICALLY. All things are. in them- 
es selves, 2ood. It- it refa 
'; '^ Somethings are in their very nature, how- 
ri\ much more liable to abuse than others. Elat- 
ing, sleeping, working, may each be abuse 1, at not 
likely. The-e are necessities. The wine-<;up 3 the 
card-table, the dance, the theater, the world's pleas- 
ures, each and all, in their very nature, tend to ex- 
ass, and are full of fascination and danger to most 
persons, and hence had better be entirely aban- 
doned than risk the danger to which they expose all 
and by which they ruin their thousai: 

Alcohol, in any of its pure forms or compouri -. 
mav be judiciously used as medicine, under the 
prescription of an I. and exemplary physician 



Nature and Character of the Evil. 15 

friend. It is dangerous often to prescribe for one's 
seF, and harder still to follow the prescription when 
made, if it's of brandy. Paul's prescription to Tim- 
othy is good authority ; but it is a prohibition to well 
men. The example of Christ at Cana of Gallilee, 
affords no comfort to the habitual drinker of even 
the most innocent wine. It must be acknowledged, 
however, that the cultivation of the pure grape and 
the use of domestic wines all over the country, 
would go far to exterminate drunkenness in the dis- 
use of adulterated liquors and strong drink. Whether 
it would be a cure for the dreadful disease or not, 
has not been fairly demonstrated in any portion of 
Europe or America. In wine-growing, or beer- 
drinking states, drunkenness prevails to a very large 
extent, but not so generally as in this country. 

But the truth is, a perfectly well man needs no 
artificial stimulus, either to health or enjoyment. 
That of normal food and nature is all he requires. 
Alcohol is not a food; nor does it ever give vital 
force to body or mind, save in a state of exhaustion 
and extreme cold; and then only in small quantities, 
judiciously taken; otherwise the effects of the rem- 



16 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

edy are more fatal and exhaustive than those of the 
disease itself. Neither is alcohol any preventive of 
disease. During the recent epidemics in Memphis 
and Nashville, it was abundantly proven that tem- 
perate men were generally exempt from cholera and 
yellow fever, but if attacked, their recovery was 
almost certain. So it is in all other diseases. The 
pure constitution of a " total abstainer" is almost a 
sure guarantee against malarial, epidemic, or preva- 
lent diseases. To these propositions the ablest phy- 
sicians in the world, the common observation and 
the experience of mankind, give their assent. 

Under the head of the physical, alcohol is a nar- 
cotic poison — good, like other poisons, in its place, 
when properly used. Substantially, the following, 
according to Dr. Miller of Edinburg, are the poison- 
ous effects of alcohol: 

1. " The Shock." Alcohol taken in large quan- 
tities, is immediately absorbed by the vessels of the 
stomach, and mingling with the blood, is carried to 
all parts of the body, affecting very specially the 
nervous centers. These are paralyzed; the heart 
stop 3 and life ceases, Prussic acid is not more cer- 



Nature and Character of the Evil. 17 

tainly deadly. Thus it acts like a blow upon the 
head or the stomach. > 

2. " Coma" The bottle is consumed more leis- 
urely. The victim is found in a state closely resem- 
oling apoplexy, with suffused face, laboring pulse, 
heavy breathing, total insensibility. The nervous 
centers are all but paralyzed ; the heart and lungs 
act imperfectly. The man is choking gradually. 
The hand of alcohol is on his throat — and soon he 
is still — in the grasp of death. 

3. "Dead Drunk" The man is stronger, or 
perhaps the dose is less, or more slowly taken; and 
after a heavy stupor, the drunkard evinces signs of 
returning consciousness. He has been all but ac- 
tually dead, as in coma — poisoned with alcohol. Had 
he died, upon dissection, the alcohol would have 
been found unchanged, not only in the general mass 
of the blood, but especially in the brain, a texture 
for which it has great affinity. 

4. "Intoxication" Reaching the brain more 
gradually and in smaller quantities, the alcohol acts 
at first as a stimulant, accompanied by great vivacity, 
intellectual excitement, and play of fancy. The 



18 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

dose cod tinned, sight and hearing are affected; the 
limbs grow weak; the head swims; the tongue re- 
fuses distinct articulation ; the intellect is perverted, 
partaking of the nature of delirium; reason is gone; 
and voluntary control more and more in abeyance. 
The passions defy all moral power; and the man 
becomes, by his own act, a voluntarius demon — fitted 
only for violence, both to himself and others. 

5. " Aleoholismvs Chrowcus" or "chronic alco- 
holic poisoning." This is by frequent repetition and 
cumulative action of alcohol upon the nervous sys- 
tem. The whole body trembles; eyesight and hear- 
ing are impaired; the mind is weak; general debil- 
ity increases; sleep is capricious; strength, comfort, 
appetite and energy disappear; the stomach puts 
forth foul secretions; startlings seize the limbs; epi- 
lepsy may follow; the man may die. Arsenic could 
not sap life more surely; and all this without having 
been absolutely drunk. 

6. Delirium Ebrosium" The last case runs into 
this, after the continued effects of the alcohol passes 
off*. The man becomes sober, but is mad. This 
insanity, termed delirium ebrosium, is usually of an 



Nature and Character of the Evil. 19 

active or dangerous kind, both to others and to the 
victim alike. It often becomes permanent, and set- 
tles down into a confirmed mental disease. 

7. "Delirium Tremens." Body weak; nerves 
unstrung; the mind a prey to all manner of rapidly 
shifting delusions; violence to others improbable, 
but injury to self not unlikely. This may result 
even from occasional drinking. Death in these par- 
oxysms not unfrequent; or the temporary insanity 
may become permanent,. 

8. " Oinomania" For the time the victim is well, 
sober, trustworthy. But suddenly a furious and 
fiendish impulse draws him again to the bottle. He 
gulps down the glass, as if his only object were in- 
stant and complete intoxication. Once drunk, he 
will hardly suffer himself to grow sober again for 
perhaps a week or ten days. Then he gradually gets 
hold of a lucid interval — to be rudely broken again 
at no distant day. This is a confirmed disease from 
which few, if any, ever recover. An oinomaniac 
once said, "If a bottle of brandy stood at one end of 
the table, and the pit of hell yawned, at the other, and 



20 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy, 

were I convinced that so soon as I took a glass, I should 
be pushed off, I could not refrain." 

Fearful disease! Fearful accountability to him 
who thus habituates himself to insanity ! It is no 
excuse that drunkenness becomes insanity. The time 
was when the victim had the moral power to over- 
come his besetting sin. If he lost that power, it was 
his own fault; and he stands guilty of every invol- 
untary act of subsequent madness. It is all his own 
folly and self-wrought ruin. 

Of course, all these physical effects are modified 
or intensified, according to the degrees of habitual 
drinking. However fixed or imperfect the habit, 
the poisonous effects are proportionably produced; 
and will be, sooner or later, developed into certain 
injury — for, sooner or later, the habit will be unal- 
terably fixed. The individual may never get drunk, 
but if his drinking is habitual, it will display itself 
in final developments of evil or injury, when the 
victim least expects it. The process maybe of slow 
and imperceptible progress, but all of a sudden the 
machinery of physical life clogs, or snaps, or breaks 
down. 



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a'<y>> <~f> &^ **-2> ,:/ ^~> <s~^> fe^ -^"2> <^N ^~* ^4 ^2r> <2N Sr 1 -^S'-O <"SN £t** 



CHAPTER in. 



NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THE EVIL CONTINUED. 



III. 




3^ EXT ALLY. 



^^mauui. If the effects of habitual 
drinking are fearful to the body, we have 
already discovered a no less fatal effect upon 
the mind. Let us consider this point more mi- 
nutely. For purposes of convenience, we may dis- 
tinguish the mind into (1) intellect; (2) will; (3) 
moral emotions; (4) animal passions. I here follow 
merely the order of Dr. Miller. 

1. The intellect. To a greater or less degree, in- 
tellectual efforts are often stimulated by alcohol in 
social and convivial conversation and interchange, 
in public oratory, in many of the great ;efforts with 
the pen, and in the varied business of life. This is 
the force of a dangerous and mistaken notion — 



22 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy, 

fearfully detrimental, in the habit, to the exercise of 
a healthy brain — except, perhaps, when alcohol is 
judiciously employed to aid feeble and exhausted 
constitutions. Men who are addicted to this arti- 
ficial stimulus of the intellect, generally become 
otherwise intemperate, and are by no means trust- 
worthy. However brilliant in talent and calling, 
they are usually rash, hasty, hot-headed, unsafe 
guides, and unreliable exponents of any class of bu- 
siness or principles — aside from the fact of being 
generally corrupt and unscrupulous. It is a mis- 
taken idea that the most honorable, the most noble 
men in the country, generally drink liquor. "What- 
ever may have been their character or nature at the 
start, alcohol will finally debase them, even in the 
loftiest and most honorable vocations of life. By 
w r ay of illustration we might refer to the lives, 
characters and acts of many preachers, doctors, law- 
yers, politicians, authors and military chieftains, 
whose temerity, imprudence, radicalism, indiscre- 
tions and defections have long since destroyed their 
influence, their fortunes and their fame ; and whose 
blunders and crimes have led, in many instances, to 



Nature and Character of the Evil 23 

personal, family, ecclesiastical, or national calamities. 
But this is not all. Intellectual efforts, thus stimu- 
lated, ever leave the mind exhausted as well as cor- 
rupted. In combination with the natural fires of 
the physical constitution, alcohol burns out, by 
great intellectual effort, the vitality of the brain. 
There is a mental, as well as physical exhaustion, 
following every such effort, which sends the whole 
man as far below nature's zero as the unnatural and 
artificial stimulus raised him above it. And then 
each successive effort, according to the intensity of 
the habit, demands a greater degree of the required 
stimulant for success, until finally, abused aud ex- 
hausted nature breaks down. There are cases upon 
record, where, after some of these grand intellectual 
efforts, the overtaxed functions of some gigantic 
brain have burnt out, like a constantly heated forge, 
and the victim forever shorn of his intellect. In 
some instances, life itself has been extinguished, 
when the orator took his seat, or the writer laid 
down his pen. The candle of genius flashed sud- 
denly out; the lamp of a great spirit was forever 
quenched. 



24 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

And this is not all. As we Lave seen, insanity, 
madness, imbecility, wrecklessness and mental folly, 
are the great mass of evil concomitants which enter 
into the ruin of the intellect, disordered by habitual 
drinking. ^SVe need not enter the jail, the gibbet, 
the penitentiary, as we shall see hereafter, to discover 
the effects of drink: but the poor-house, the tomb 
of the suicide, the cell of the maniac — a thousand 
dens of misery and hovels of poverty, to behold the 
wrecks of the noblest intellects, and the conse- 
quences of their folly. Ah! my readers, keep your 
brain cool, if you would be intellectually great or 
good. Brandy only excites the imagination and 
distorts the fancy, without substantially aiding the 
judgment in the least. On the contrary intoxica- 
tion ever paralyzes, subverts, nay, destroys your rea- 
son — the lamp and the light of nature, and man's 
only intellectual guide. Above all things, keep 
your head cool. 

2. The will. Volition is man's controlling power: 
but alcohol masters the giant's will, leaving the 
mightiest mind to drift, like a rudderless ship, upon 
the merciless billows of passion's tempest-tossed 



Nature and Character of the Evil. 25 

ocean. The maddened drunkard, when sober, has 
little or no will of his own; and against the loathing 
of his very soul and his better judgment, goes, again 
and again, like the sow, to his wallowing in the 
mire — in spite of himself and every counter influ- 
ence. ISTot only so, but the will can exercise no vol- 
untary control against the commission, oft', of the 
most dreadful crimes. In moments of sense and 
soberness, there is generally some motive power be- 
hind the will— either impelling to good, or restrain- 
ing from evil; but when a man is under the influence 
of alcohol, all motive power is in abeyance. Purpose 
has no well-defined bounds — save those of passion, 
maddened and bent upon evil; the soul, descending 
from the loftiest heights of true nobility to the low- 
est deeps of grossness or folly, breaks down the pil- 
lars of its own will, and revels in its own ruins. 

Sometimes men drink to give force or power to 
their will; but such an act is generally the manifes- 
tation of cowardice, imbecility, or of some unmanly 
design. Moral courage requires no such artificial 
motive power; and he that applies it will invariably 
corrupt his courage, and totally rob himself of what 



26 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

little moral manhood he has. Worse than all, when 
the influence of such a motive is gone, the victim 
sinks but the deeper still into a lower depth of cow- 
ardice, corruption and self-disrespect. 

3. The moral emotions. Alcohol, like the furnace 
to steel, ever petrifies the heart; like mildew, it 
ever casts a withering blight upon the loftier pas- 
sions of the soul. The slightest touch of intemper- 
ance sears them, as with a hot iron. These emotions 
are the tenderest and purest portion of our being. 
They are gentle chords of the heart, upon which 
nature plays her sweetest notes, filling the soul 
with melody from within and from without. Touch 
them purely and softly, and there are corresponding 
symphonies, in heaven and earth alike, everywhere 
awakening the sympathies of beings above and be- 
ings below, and bringing social and spiritual man 
into the union and communion of a holier and loft- 
ier music than ever waked the melodies of earthly 
harp. Alcohol sweeps these chords with the ma- 
niacal touch of the demon, breaking in with a rude 
crash upon the harmony and the inner purity of the 
human heart, like the harsh blast of the warrior's 



Nature and Character of the Evil. 27 

bugle upon the calm, sweet air of a lovely night. 
Nay, brandy crushes out the moral emotions; 
crushes to extinction. As in the intellect and the 
will — even in the lucid intervals of the debauchee — 
he is oft, insensible to the most potent touch of any 
earthly motive, whether of person, family, rank, 
country, self or ambition. Love, hope, fear, justice, 
truth, honor, shame, pity — everything that distin- 
guishes a man from a brute — all that ever savored of 
the "likeness and image" of God, are not un fre- 
quently eradicated, not only for the moment, but 
permanently from the inebriate's flinty bosom. All 
we have said is, to a greater or less degree, true of 
every man who drinks, according to the degree or 
intensity of his intemperance. 

4. The animal passions. These require no culti- 
vation, save that of restraint, in which consists im- 
measurably the success and happiness of mankind. 
Everything else in man needs the most careful cul- 
ture and development, but these animal desires and 
passions are the wild grass and the weeds of our 
nature, the roots of which are original sin, but, how- 
ever evil, can do us no harm, if not allowed to crop 



Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 



out. Xo rain makes them grow like alcohol; and the 
drunkard's heart is like yonder blighted field, in 
which the growth of his moral and intellectual en- 
dowments have paled, and choked, and sickened, 
and blasted, and died under the suffocating and 
spontaneous growth of his animal passions. But 
excite and develop them with wine, and they are 
the faries of hell, which now revel in fiendish de- 
light in the soul, turning anon every good thing 
out; and now, maddened and exhausted by exercise, 
leave the heart panting with its insatiable fires, ever- 
ungratified, even when the poor body is overcome 
and paralyzed with its burning stimulus. When 
sober, these passions are hard to subdue; but when 
drinking, they blot out every trace of moral and 
voluntary manhood — now leaving the victim the 
wreck of shame and remorse, but in the end, even 
shorn of his conscience — the strongest pillar of our 
fallen nature. Like a mighty Samson blind, drink 
will finally lift that magnificent column from under 
the sublime framework of the soul, and it will fell 
in its grandeur, an undistinguishable ruin. 



CHAPTER IV. 



NATURE AND CHARACTER OF THE EVIL — CONTINUED. 



IV. 



fPIRITUALLY. Here we shall be brief, 
S^|| as we have already anticipated much we have 
1^ to say. For the sake of convenience we shall 
distinguish religion from morality — at least from 
morality so called — in the world. Morality is not 
religion, then, but only one of the effects of reli- 
gion, arising from the love and practice of its pre- 
cepts. If the drunkard cannot be guided by even 
the principles of mcral rectitude, how utterly hope- 
less his case in a spiritual point of view! The 
crowning evidence and inalienable element of the 
"new birth" in Christianity is "FAITH which 
works by love;" which purifies the heart; which 
ever awakens and quickens the once dead sinner to 
a living and sensible realization of his relations to 



30 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

God and to man; of his own union with Christ; 
of his hopes of eternal life. Faith, if anything 
does, keeps the fear of God before our eyes, and 
the love of God in our once obdurate hearts. I 
mean, of course, that faith which is "of the opera- 
tion of God;" which is operative in itself, and which 
is the "fruit of the Spirit." 

Now there can be no consistency between ardent 
spirit, which kills both body and soul, and HOLY 
SPIRIT, which makes alive. The two are wide as 
the poles asunder — antipodes — and can never exist 
together. In the first place, it is utterly impossible 
to reclaim a man to Christ under any sort of alco- 
holic influence, no matter how the man prays, 
praises, weeps, shouts, or exercises his functions. 
His religious conceptions will all be morbid, or 
fanciful; and when the effect of the liquor is gone, 
he despises the efforts he made, and his religious 
notions and sentiments are more remote and indif- 
ferent than ever. A gentleman listening on one 
occasion to my sermon on "Jesus of Nazareth" 
appeared most deeply affected. At the close of the 
services he came up and took me by the hand, the 



Nature, and Character of the Evil. 31 

tears streaming down his cheeks, said, " I could cut a 
man's throat who would say aught against Jesus of Naz- 
areth." The man was partially intoxicated. His 
moral emotions were morbid — his fancy distorted — 
his animal passions, by an unlawful usurpation, rev 
eling with religious frenzy in the purer realms of 
the soul, and contaminating the only sanctum sanc- 
torum of the Spirit of God in man. A man must 
be cool, sober, clear-headed, at himself, to enter in 
truth and spirit, this holy of holies— even in his own 
breast. Christianity is a profound principle — of 
spiritual comprehension alone — demanding the 
whole intellect, will, and moral emotions, and the 
entire subjugation and subordination of the animal 
passions. We could tell of hundreds of instances — 
in the church, on the street — of men more or less 
affected with whisky, whose tears, entreaties, prom- 
ises and good intentions upon the subject of reli- 
gion were not as substantia] as the morning mists, or 
the early dew before the sun. Meet the same men 
when a little sober, and they are the first to evade 
the subject, or the last to even hint of religion. 
Thev really then loathe it in their hearts. And so 



32 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

we conclude that it is impossible to reclaim a sinner 
to Christ under any sort of alcoholic influences. 

Again, it is impossible to conceive a Christian a 
habitual drinker. What is true of the sinner in 
this point of view, must be true of the professor. 
His spiritual conceptions and enjoyments must be 
exceedingly gross and fanciful. You often hear 
these professed' followers of a meek and lowly Sa- 
vior talk of their religion and experiences, and some- 
times weep like children, but their words are extrav- 
agance, and their tears spring from a meaningless 
excitement. But even this state of things changes. 
These drinking professors generally wander from 
the true faith, as they deflect from the path of moral 
rectitude ; and groveling alcohol soon incorporates 
into their so-called religion, false and sensual views 
to fit their conduct. Whisky is a prolific source of 
infidelity, even among professors, and they soon dis- 
cover faults and errors in Christianity and Christ- 
ians which they constantly display, to excuse their 
own weaknesses, and palliate their own sins. As in 
everything else, but more especially in this, when 
professors get wrong themselves, they readily dis- 



Nature and Character of the Evil. 33 

cover the Bible and their brethren all wrong. In the 
end, the drunken professor, if he persists in his sin, 
becomes a croaking skeptic, a hater of Christians, 
and often the worst of all misanthropes. Some of 
the bitterest infidels may be found among drinking 
backsliders. They onge, like the " stony ground" 
hearer, ran well for a while ; but in time of tempta- 
tion began to fall away, until they have reached, in 
their downward and sensual course, the undefined 
shores of an ever-widening infidelity. Their last 
state is a thousand times worse than the first. 

There are some exceptions, however, who always 
seem penitent over their wanderings, and who coru 
tinue orthodox to the theory of their faith. But 
alas! alas! they are too weak, both mentally and 
morally, to overcome the besotting and the besetting 
sin. God only knows — we cannot tell — what will 
be the fate of such professors. The religion of 
Christ says, " Whatsoever is born of God overcometh 
the world." Paul declares this overcoming element 
in himself, when he says, " I therefore run, as not 
uncertainly; so fight I, not as one that beateth the 
air: but I keep under my body, and bring it into 



34 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

subjection : lest by any means, when I have preach- 
ed to others, I myself should be a castaway," or, in 
other words, rejected. The evidence that a man is 
a true Christian is that he keeps his body under — 
even to the end of- his Christian race. lie may 
have many a stumble, fall and slip, but he will over- 
come all, as he journeys to the goal of his eternal 
hope. So we judge not this latter class, but leave 
them in the hands of God and his truth — to judge 
for themselves. 







CHAPTER V. 



THE INEVITABLE RESULTS OF THE EVIL. 



^^^f'JST TIME. Strong drink is the means of 
J§^1 almost every vice and misery in the land. It 
wSj& is not only universal, but absolute, in its ef- 
fects. Said Judge Coleridge : " There is scarcely a 
crime before me that is not directly or indirectly 
caused by strong drink." Judge Gurney said: " Ev- 
ery crime habits origin, more or less, in drunkenr 
ness." Judge Patteson remarked to a jury: *If it 
were not for this drinking, you and I would have 
nothing to do." This is the universal testimony of 
the bench, of the philosopher, and of the observe- 
of human conduct. They all agree that " habitual 
drinking is the epitome of every crime. 5 ' Let us 
briefly contemplate the results of this great evil 
classified : 



36 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

1. Upon the individual as a whole. What a pic- 
ture the victim of " convivial intemperance", or of 
" solitary sottishness" ! "What a sermon is a drunken 
man ! Baseness and villainy, disease and wretched- 
ness, filth and rags, shame and remorse, folly and 
madness, in young and old, are only some of the 
consequences and traits of a drunkard's life. " Who 
hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? 
who hath babblings ? who hath wounds without a 
cause? who hath redness of eyes (and nose and 
face) ? They that tarry long at the wine." Friend- 
less and despised; forsaken of God and scorned 
even by his companions in vice; the mock of the 
multitude in evil, and the bane of society; his bed 
in the gutter; his home in the prison-house — and 
all this for what? Aye, all this miserable heritage 
of shame and woe for the momentary gratification 
of a cup that poisons, and of a draught that damns ! 
These are pictures which have been drawn a thous- 
and times, and yet they are ever new and full of 
painful interest. There are over six hundred thous- 
and just such pictures now in the United States. 

Young man, will this ever be thy picture? Lift 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil. 37 

up the mirror of the drunkard, and see if your face 
is there. Ah! yes; it is your picture, just so cer- 
tain as you drink. Habit will imperceptibly en- 
twine his anaconda folds around thy nature, till at 
last resistance will be in vain. It is only a question 
of time. You may sneer at the idea now, but sooner 
or later your social tipplings, or your secret toper- 
ings, will end in habitual drunkenness, now so 
loathsome and hateful to your very soul. Xo one 
ever expected, much less intended, to be a drunk- 
ard. That oft-repeated, but very truthful stanza, 
is most forcibly illustrated in habitual drinking: 

11 Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, 
That to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, familiar with its face, 
We first endure, then pity, then EMBRACE. 77 

2. Upon the Family . Again behold misery, 
shame, rags, sorrow, hunger, POVERTY ! " He 
that loveth wine, 57 says Solomon, " shall not be rich." 
The dram-drinker's home is an awful commentary 
upon this passage of Scripture. There is poverty 
in everything there — even to the poverty of DES- 
PAIR. Oh ! that once bright cottage — full of cheer- 



38 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

ful faces, glowing with light and thrift, replete with 
happiness and hope! The clean white curtains and 
the well-served table; the neatly dressed children 
and the clean swept carpets; the polished furniture, 
the ivy-clad wall, the flowers in the yard — all told 
of a noble wife, a good husband, precious children, 
and a home, " sweet home " ! But look now at yon- 
der broken windows and that desolate hearthstone ! 
Behold those downcast children and that broken- 
hearted wife ! Listen to that crimination and re- 
crimination; those cries of little ones and shrieks 
of loved ones; those curses, oaths, shouts and yells!! 
Bitterness usurps the place of domestic felicity, and 
shadows becloud the sunlight of smiles. The fence 
is decayed; the neglected ivy clings no more to the 
dilapidated walls; the flowers have withered; the 
furniture is ragged, the carpet full of holes; the table 
and the larder are empty ; the children cling to the 
wretched mother for comfort which she has not, and 
for bread and clothing which she must beg or earn. 
The man has become a drunkard. 

This is a familiar picture, frequently drawn ; how 
often do we paint it — sometimes almost upon the 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil. 39 

very walls of the church of Jesus Christ ! Horrid 
Picture ! How can a human being thus go to his 
home, day by day, and gaze constantly upon the 
" flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone," the wreck 
of his accursed folly ? How can he do it and live ? 
How can he look daily into the drear depths of 
those desolate hearts and feel no pity, nor such a 
pang of remorse as would make reformation cer- 
tain, or death sure? Who blames woman for her 
late holy war upon the fell monster, DRDsK ? It 
may be mixed with fanaticism, but it is fanaticism 
of the most excusable character. It looks more like 
justice vindicating the sacred homes of chastity, 
beauty and hope, against the insanity of man who 
would destroy them. It looks more like reason, des- 
perate in her self-defense, than madness; I bid her 
God-speed. She may err a little — be a little out of 
her place; but she will not stray far, since her mo- 
tive and her cause are great, momentous and good. 
If man will not come to the rescue, let injured wo- 
man defend herself. Listen to the plaintive wail of 
a beautiful daughter who has realized the miseries 
of this unmitigated curse of the world, and we shall 



40 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

not be ready to condemn these recent demonstra- 
tions. In sadness and grief listen: 

11 Go feel what I have felt, 

Go bear what I have borne — 
Sink neath the blow a father dealt. 

And the cold world's proud scorn ; 
Then suffer on from year to year — 
Thy sole relief the scorching tear. 
11 Go kneel, as I have knelt, 

Implore, beseech, and pray — 
Strive the besotted heart to melt, 

The downward course to stay — 
Be dashed with bitter curse aside. 
Your prayers burlesqued, your tears defied. 
" Go weep, as I have wept. 

Over a loved father's fall ; 
See every promised blessing swept— 

Youth's sweetness turned to gall ; 
Life's fading flowers strewed all the way 
That brought me up to woman's day. 
•' Go, see what I have seen, 

Behold the strong man bow — 
With gnashing teeth— lips bathed in blood — 

And cold and livid brow ; 
Go catch his withering glance, and see 
There mirrored hi> soul's misery. 



The Inevitable Results of Ihe Evil. 41 

** Go to thy mother's side, 

And her crushed bosom choer ; 
Thine own deep gashes hide, 

Wipe from her cheek the bitter tear ; 
Mark her worn frame and withered brow ; 
The gray that streaks her dark hair now ; 
With fading frame and trembling limb. 
And trace the ruin back to him, 
Whose plighted faith in early youth 
Promised eternal love and truth ; 
But who, foresworn, hath yielded up 
That promise to the damning cup, 
And led her down through love and light, 
And all that made her promise bright — 
And chained her there 'mid want and strife^ 
That lowly thing, a drunkard's wife — 
And stamped on childhood's brow so mild, 
That withering blight— a drunkard's child. 

* 4 Go hear and feel and see and know, 

All that my soul hath felt and known ; 
Then look upon the wine-cup's glow, 

See if its beauty can atone — 
Then if its flavor you can try, 
Where all proclaim ^tis drink and die! 
*' Tell me I hate the bowl ?— 
Hate is a feeble word 1 
I loathe— abhor — my very soul 



42 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

With strong disgust is stirred — 
Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell 
Of that dark beverage of hell. 77 

"Worse than all, man transmits the disease of 
drunkenness to his posterity. His habit passes in 
the blood he infuses into the veins of his children, 
for it soon becomes constitutional, and therefore 
hereditary. The wicked parent thus entails evil upon 
his children's children, and visits his iniquities upon 
the third or fourth generations. O ye drunken fath- 
ers 1 if not for your own sakes, yet for pity's sake, 
and for your children's sake, send not this blood- 
corrupting evil down upon your innocent posterity. 

3. Upon the Community. Picture to yourself, my 
dear reader,, a drunken community 1 Idleness and 
beggery; bar-rooms and beer-gardens; Sabbath des- 
ecrations and house-breakings ; thefts and murders ; 
jails and poor houses; taxation and bankruptcy; li- 
censed lewdness and legalized and advertised rev- 
elry — night and dayl Pardon me, if this picture 
comes too near home. But behold many of our 
cities, and what a fearful commentary upon this pic- 
ture 1 Mark, as in many places elsewhere, those 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil. 43 

scores of beer gardens and thousands of bar-rooms 
in Memphis? They meet you at every step of ap- 
proach and attack, like so many brilliantly bristling 
fortifications of the " enemy of souls." Each is 
more numerously attended and better supported 
than any of our forty churches — white or colored — 
day after day and week after week, from year to 
year. Splendidly lighted and ornamented — "how 
false and yet how fair" — how inviting, and yet how 
fatal to him who enters there ! The young and the 
old, the great and the small — and even WOMAN — 
gathers there ! She, too, reels often out of this BAR 
to everything but hell — this BAR to everything 
good, glorious, or great — and staggers along our 
streets ! Fallen woman, next to a fallen angel, is 
the worst of all debauchees. Woman drunk on the 
streets of Memphis? Yes. Horrid picture ! ! Fear- 
fully ominous ! ! ! 

But whose fault is all this ? They who do these 
things ? Yes. But are our skirts clean from this 
filthy blood ? No. The municipal authorities, the 
churches of Jesus Christ, the public journals, the 
so-called society of the age, the family altar, and 



44 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

every individual and interest — all whose moral influ- 
ence, business advantage and legal jurisdiction do 
not interpose to stigmatize and punisli the great 
evil, and ameliorate the ruinous condition of its 
victims — I tell you your skirts are not clear. Worse 
than all, if you have encouraged the vice by gift, 
or merchandize ! It would be infinitely more profit- 
able — even from a selfish standpoint — for the ven- 
ders of this "distilled damnation" to close their 
wholesale and retail establishments, and turn their 
attention to other business. Every gallon of whis- 
ky sold is but the means of impoverishing the 
community in which you live. You kill the goose 
that lays you the golden egg. Keep liquor from a 
community, and it will grow thrifty and rich, and it 
will enrich you in return. Aside from all this, but 
few venders of liquors ever grow rich. Sooner or 
later they become their best customers, and bloom- 
ing faces take the place of well filled pockets. 

Nor let any man lay the flattering unction to his 
soul, that if he does not manufacture and sell this 
world- destroying evil, some one else will. So says 
•the thief and every evil doer. " If I do not take 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil. 45 

this man's pig, or poultry, or fruit, some one else 
will." As well might every man in the world say, 
" If I don't do this or that wrong, some one else 
will." It is no excuse for us to do evil because 
others will do it. This is the refuge of lies under 
which half the world is going to hell to-day. Nor 
will it answer the truth to justify this evil upon the 
ground that every man must " provide for his own." 
"Business is business," but God has provided a 
thousand honest ways to make an honest living. 
Better dig ditches and grub stumps for a living, than 
send men to hell and go there yourselves. 

Nor will it answer morals to say that the drinker 
is responsible, and not the seller and the manufac- 
turer. Woe unto you if you put the bottle to your 
neighbor's mouth. We must put no temptation in 
.the way of Any man. We must avoid the appear- 
ance of evil ; but we must also not place the appear- 
ance of evil before the world. Paul says, eating 
meat and keeping days were not wrong in them- 
selves, being things indifferent; but if they were 
an occasion of stumbling to a weak brother, we 
must do neither. Let us offend in nothing. There 



46 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

is peculiar danger in liquor put before a fallen 
world. As well might we put any other danger 
before men, but console ourselves with the idea 
that they are responsible if they are injured. 

Ye ministers of light, ye angels of mercy, ye 
functionaries of justice, ye men of business, ye 
institutions of reform, ye social dignitaries, ye 
churches of the living Grod, look to your interests — ■ 
look to the condition of your ruined fellow-crea- 
tures — look to the results of time and eternity! Be 
up and doing. What are ye doing to lift this 
mighty curse from your communities? 

4. Upon the Government. u "Woe to the drunk- 
ards of Ephraim ! The crown of pride, the drunk- 
ards of Ephraim shall be trodden under feet/' may 
almost be said of us as a nation. Many of the chiefs 
of our government have been drinkers and drunk- 
ards. The highest and most sacred trusts have been 
reposed in the hands of debauchees, from the Presi- 
dent to the constable; from the cabinet to the 
bench; from the legislature to the army and the 
navy. "It is not for kings, Lemuel, to drink wine ; 
nor for princes strong drink — lest they drink and forget 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil. 47 

the law" Many of our past calamities in every sec- 
tion of the country and department of the govern- 
ment, are attributable to drinking politicians and 
officials, who have led millions of dupes through 
the fraud of the grog-shop to the success of the bal- 
lot Even armies have been led to the triumphs of 
battle under the banners of alcohol. It may turn 
out yet, that they were trampling upon the hopes, 
the rights and liberties of the people, in that retrib- 
utive justice which shall yet meet out a reward ac- 
cording to our national iniquities. Even now the 
ruin of defeat, on the one side, and the victory of 
spoils, on the other, are the consequences of a uni- 
versal national corruption; while many a fair field, 
and flourishing city, and noble heart, has been left a 
desolate waste in a howling wilderness. 

5. Upon the Church. "The Priest and the Pro- 
phet have erred through strong drink." Many of 
the dreadful exposures of ministerial and priestly 
dereliction, which occasionally disgrace the pulpit 
and the altar, spring from the abuse of wine. One 
of the special qualifications of the bishop is that he 
is not to be " given to wine" ; and when one falls a 



48 Habitual Drinking and its 'Remedy. 

victim to the dread habit, the whole country feels 
the shock. Such eases are rare, fortunately, but 
whenever they do occur, the evidence of the world's 
appreciation of this highest and holiest trust of all, 
is the awful punishment which public opinion inflicts 
upon the recreant. "What a terrible blow is dealt to 
the cause by the dissipation of a dram-drinking 
preacher of the gospel ! 

But what of the Pew ? How often church mem- 
bers reel in their seats, or stagger to their homes. 
Oft they are unable to salute their pastor upon the 
streets or in their places of business, without be- 
traying a thick tongue, a vacant gaze, or a toppling 
frame. ye church members know you not what 
shafts of infidelity you place in the hands of gain- 
say ers, to thrust at the cross and the house of God ? 
How the churches bleed to-day, at every pore, by 
these poisoned and barbed arrows which pierce our 
vitals from every side ! How Jesus is wounded in 
the house of his so-called friends ! Some of you are 
his crucifiers afresh. And thou churches of the liv- 
ing God, do you know the Gospel? "If any man 
that is called a brother, be a drunkard, ivith such an one 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil. 49 

no not to eat" "Beware, lest at any time your hearts 
be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, 
and so that the day come upon you unawares." Do 
your duty, and cast out this evil leaven from your 
fellowship and communion, as ye are commanded. 
It is needless for churches to strain at a gnat and 
swallow a camel over dancing, gaming, and other 
worldly amusements, while they retain drunkards 
in their communion, or even habitual drinkers who 
openly stalk, day and night, into public doggeries 
and bar-rooms before the world. No example is 
worse, no conduct more disorderly and disgraceful 
to the church of God. Many sins are worse than 
this in nature, but none more publicly reproachful 
and injurious to the cause of Christ. Envy, jeal- 
ousy, malice, legalized fraud and popularized cir- 
cumvention; slander, deception and back-biting are 
all worse, but like the sin of covetousness, more 
subtle and harder to reach. But drunkeness and 
drinking are usually public and disorderly, and must 
be punished according to the law of Christ. 




CHAPTER VI. 

THE INEVITABLE RESULTS OF THE EVIL — CONTINUED. 

n. 

fi N ETERNITY. Listen finally to the 
doom of the drunkard and the giver of 
f^js drink. Not only wretchedness, an awful 
death, a dishonored grave at the close of his earthly 
existence; but misery and remorse follow the 
drunkard through eternity. The final doom of the 
drunkard is au inevitable Hell. If there is no es- 
cape from the earthly consequences of this habit in 
time, there is none in eternity. It has been said 
that "all other sins spring from some one of the 
nobler passions of our nature, but drunkenness is 
the debasement of them all"; and its doom is un- 
questionable, certain, fixed — sometimes long ere we 
leave the shores of time. God's word declares, 
" Nor drunkards shall inherit the kingdom of God" 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil 51 

Again, says Paul, " Envyings, murders, drunkenness, 
revelings and such like: of the which. I tell you be- 
fore, as I have also told you in time past, that they 
which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom 
of God." Enough said. Let every dram-drinker 
take warning before it is forever too late. " Too 
late" may come very soon in this particular. 

And what is true of the drunkard is true of the 
giver of drink. " Woe unto him that giveth his neighbor 
drink; that imtest the bottle to him and makest him 
drunken also." How far this is to affect the liquor 
dealer — the retailer and the wholesaler — who ought, 
in fact, be the druggist and the physician ; how far 
this is to affect the manufacturer and the giver, will 
depend upon the wantonness of the act, and the 
motive and the manner with which and in which 
he has dealt this most dangerous poison to his fel- 
low-man. If in all cases, it was to bless and to 
ameliorate, the victim alone is responsible; but if 
selfish gain and a reckless disregard of human life 
marked the dealers' merchandize or the giver's mu- 
nificence, then woe to him who gave, or sold, his 
neighbor drink, as well as to the drinker himself. 



52 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

Here we may pause and ponder upon even the most 
refined and delicate use of the most innocent of 
domestic beverages at our tables and social gather- 
ings. The age has something to do with the ques- 
tion, as it does with almost every other question. 
The abuse of drink in modern times seems to have 
outstripped anything of the kind in past ages — 
whether in manufacture or consumption. How far 
then shall we guard against the condemnation and 
effects of the woe, even in the use of what is most 
innocent and legitimate? Example — especially in 
God's professed children — is potent, and often dis- 
astrous in its consequences. It is best in every case 
to give the benefit of the doubt to the side of Christ. 
"If eating meat, or drinking wine, causeth even 
one brother to offend, let us eat no more meat, nor 
drink any more wine, while the world stancleth." 
Woe unto us if we mislead the world! ! 

In Hell the drunkard and his cool destroyer will 
meet; and together they will face — the one a suicide 
and the other a homicide — the consequential wrecks 
of their folly, or their trade. The one will clutch 
at his fancied bottle in vain for fancied drink to 



The Inevitable Results of the Evil. 53 

quench his tormenting thirst, and he will forever 
mock his murderer who gave him drink; and the 
unsatisfied and the ever unsatisfiable greed of gain 
and passion will be the eternal loss of both. A long 
line of wretched victims and deeds will ever pass in 
review before them both, of their ill-spent lives, of 
their reckless follies; and hopeless despair, and 
burning remorse will but too well illustrate the 
doom of drink in the undying "worm/' the un- 
quenchable "flame," the endless degradation down 
"the bottomless pit" and the aggravated and the 
aggregated evils of that " lake of fire" which is the 
"second death." 

11 Ah, brandy, brandy, bane of life ! 
Source of tumult, spring of strife, 
Could I but half thy curses tell, 
The wise would wish THEE safe in Hell." 

drunkards and drinkers! escape this "wrath 
to come", and seek the haven of bliss. You must 
lay down your habit, however; for "There shall in 
nowise enter into it anything that defileth, neither 
whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." 
" Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremong- 



54 



Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 



ers and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh 
a lie." u \N"or drunkards shall enter into the king- 
dom of heaven." But this brings us to consider 
our Second Part, which places before us the remedy 
for the evil. 




PART SECOND. 



PART SECOND. 



THE REMEDY FOR HABITUAL DRINKING. 



^g^^^F the disease is great, the Remedy is 
fdpr^ greater, and equally universal and absolute 
<l^1r in its power and effects. No matter what 
the magnitude and the consequences of the SIN, 
there is a sublime CURE-ALL for the most 
wretched drunkard upon earth; and if for him, 
then for all. The Remedy proposed in this part 
of our work especially embraces the HABITUAL 
—CONFIRMED— DRUNKARD, not the Habitual 
Drinker merely. Of course the same Remedy is 
applicable to all ; but this now proposed is the 
only Remedy for the set drunkard. All other 
grades of drunkenness or drinking below this, can 
be cured — even by human instrumentalities and or- 
ganizations; but this radical disease requires a radi- 
cal Remedy. For the authority of this assertion, we 



58 The 'Remedy for Habitual Drinking. 

have only to refer to tne proclamation of the Gospel 
and all the examples of Christ. All manner of 
sins shall be forgiven, save the sin against the Holy 
Ghost. Christ east out devils. He cured maniacs. 
He can exorcise the demon of drunkenness. It 
would be the grossest infidelity to deny it, or even 
to doubt it. All things are possible with God, 
though it should be as easy for a camel to go 
through the e} y e of a needle, as for a rich man or 
a sot to get to heaven. 0, here comes in the om- 
nipotent work of FAITH, and what is it faith has 
not accomplished? Here gleams in the light of 
eternal HOPE, which never maketh "ashamed," 
and which can light her torch at depravity's funeral 
pile. Here beams the day of divine LOVE, which 
covers a multitude of sins, and which inspires alike 
the helper and the helpless. CHRIST is the Rem- 
edy, and to this idea the following pages will bo 
devoted. 



CHAPTER I. 

IX WHAT THE REMEDY DOES XOT CONSIST. 
I. 

• 

^$8^ HE REMEDY does not consist in pledges to 

i^rB| self, or any one else. 

^b There is not the least confidence to be 
placed in the drunkard's self He has no self. That 
which constitutes a man's self is annihilated. His 
voluntary control is destroyed, his intellect shat- 
tered, his moral emotions seared over and over, his 
animal passions supreme over all his other powers. 
He dare not rely on self, which he has recklessly, 
knowingly and madly murdered. The moral man 
is gone; the brute — nay worse than the brute, in 
many instances — only remains: and just as the grov- 
eling beast of the field, when hungry, seizes the 
tempting, but forbidden bait, without a moment's 



60 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

consideration, so the infatuated sot goes back to 
the bowl, against every self-made promise, by an 
overwhelming impulse. 

Nor is there power in pledges to others. The 
drunkard's promises are cheap — feeble instrumen- 
talities which cost nothing at the time they are 
made, and which produce nothing. A sudden 
fright, a momentary horror, the gleam of a lost 
hope, a deep sense of shame, the poignancy of a tran- 
sient remorse — any of these may induce the most 
solemn oath — u in black and white" — before men 
and angels, but it will be rudely broken when the 
effect of the temporary and external motive is gone. 
Like death-bed and scared-up conversions, the 
drunkard's resolution is gone, his pledges forgot- 
ten, when the danger seems over; and despotic pas- 
sion will resume its sway, perhaps, upon its habit- 
ual demand in the fi rst temptation. 

The drunkard needs some greater motive than 
pledges and temporary resolves, which usually van- 
ish with the circumstances that inspire them. His 
disease is a burning consumption, whose every ap- 
parent change for the better is but the premonition 



In what the Remedy does not Consist. 61 

of a deeper relapse. I repeat, the drunkard — the 
confirmed drunkard — requires a radical remedy — a 
permanent, deep-seated motive which no pledge, 
nor earthly inspiration can ever give, and which no 
earthly temptation or power can take away. 

IT. 

The remedy does not consist in joining a temperance, 
or similar institution. 

I shall not object to the drunkard's doing so; but, 
sooner or later, he will retract or break his obliga- 
tion, thus perjuring himself, to return, like the 
dog to his filthy vomit, worse than ever, before. 
This is the result, nine times out of ten, and "the 
last state of that man is worse than the first." 
Temperance institutions are most excellent preven- 
tives, but never cures of the confirmed disease. 
As bars to the progress of the great evil, we bid 
God-speed to every institution in the land which 
promises prevention, or reform, in those who are 
capable of reform. In this point of view, the growth 
of the monster may be checked, and thousands re- 
claimed just upon the verge of ruin. But the pow- 



62 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

er of no organization or association has yet been 
able to break the iron chains of confirmed habit. 
The motive may be greater, by reason of public 
opinion and fraternal association, than in mere per- 
sonal pledges, or individual resolves, but the relapse 
of the inebriate is only a question of time. The 
fact is, no true motive or principle lies in organism 
at all. Organisms are great pro-motives, when some 
principle which moves a man has already been 
reached; but in the case of the drunkard, without 
the power of reaching any principle of reform or 
salvation whatever. 

This view of the subject, however, is not intend- 
ed to discourage any effort upon the part of the 
inebriate, or Wie institutions which propose to re- 
form. We never know exactly where the line of 
hope is crossed. Besides this, there are apparently 
exceptions to the rule we have laid down. Alto- 
o-ether, there is no harm in any effort to reform and 
save, unless that effort is ill-timed, badly managed, 
and unadapted to the desired end. If that effort 
should finally leave a man worse than before, we 
had better adopt some other method of redemptici: 



In ivhat the Remedy does not Consist. 63 

The whole question then turns upon what the Rem- 
edy is. 

III. 

The Remedy does not consist in joining the church of 
Christ, or some other religious society. 

The church of Christ is the strongest organic in- 
strument of power on earth for good, because its 
institution is divine, its principles eternal, and its 
membership spiritual; and yet neither God, nor 
truth, nor virtue, lie in the organization itself. It 
is true, much depends upon the quality of th^ mem- 
bership, and the purity of doctrine propagated, but 
we must look beyond even such an organization as 
this for the power of that change of mind essential 
to reform and salvation. The church is only the 
^ro-motive of a higher set of principles still, when 
those principles are reached ui the soul; but, in the 
case of the drunkard, or any other sinner, without 
the power of reaching any principle whatever — just 
as in human societies. The church might go further 
than any other institution in the work of temporary 
impression, but the relapse of habit would be still 



64 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

only a question of greater time. The inebriate — 
like every other unchanged man let into the organ- 
ism of the church — would repose for a while in 
some supposed efficacy of ecclesiastical duty and 
association, and would finally fall in his unsubstan- 
tial trust. There may be some exceptions in all 
cases and classes of sins, but the rule holds good in 
the great mass. The invariable consequence of 
such churchism is greater disgrace still to the back- 
sliding and now worse discouraged man, and to the 
injured church as well. A radical disease must have 
a radical remedy. 

How dreadfully is the church already abused in 
the conduct of her children — even in cases supposed 
to be regenerate— but who, perhaps, have adopted 
this institution of God as a mere machine of refor- 
mation and regeneration! This is a common idea 
in many "high placed," inculcated as an ecclesiasti- 
cal principle, and no w T oncler thousands of ignorant 
and unlearned persons are deluded by it! How 
often the ruined wretch comes and asks for mem- 
bership, on the ground that the church will save 
him ! Who is responsible for the propagation of 



In what the Bemedy does not Consist. 65 

this monstrous and ruinous error? Let us not for- 
get that the church is " THE BRIDE OF CHRIST " 
—his "Body"— the "Flesh of His Flesh and Bone 
of His Bone" — the temple of "living" and polished 
stones — designed only for the regenerate children of 
God. If the unregenerate ever enter there, it is not 
by design. Even the regenerate do not always honor 
that temple — "the ground and pillar of the truth." 
The church may be, in the fullest sense, a hospital 
for God's weak and sickly children, but it is not a 
graveyard for corrupt and dead sinners — a "whited 
sepulcher" for "rottenness" and "dry bones." There 
is no more certain way of burying a sinner — espe- 
cially a drunkard — in the tomb of his own corrup- 
tion, than by taking him, radically unchanged, into 
the church, which itself in turn is sure to be cor- 
rupted by the "little leaven" — of one evil member 
— "which leaveneth the whole lump." Says one: 
" He might jiossibly become converted" Xine times in 
ten he will not. On the contrary, he will either 
rest in some fancied security of ecclesiastical effica- 
cy to save, or else relapse deeper into crime, so soon 
as he fails to discover, or feel, no potent and mystic 



66 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

efficacy in organization. In that event the victim 
either abandons the church in shame and disgust, 
or flatters himself with the delusion that somehow 
or other, in some way or other, at ? ome time or 
other, the church will save him at last. Wisely the 
Bible warns us to exclude, much less take in, every 
disorderly member — cut off every rotten branch, 
and by no means commune, or hold fellowship with 
drunkards in the church. The "ashler" must first 
he polished before it is put into the temple, and the 
polishing must be dcfce outside. 

All this does not exonerate the church, however, 
from the work of redemption. " Ye are the salt of 
the earth "— "the light of the world/' The church 
is the fold of the M ahee{ . and not of the "goats." 
It would never do to put goats into the fold with 
the sheep; but the church must go out and call the 
goats to Christ, who alone can change them to 
sheep, and then bring them into the fold. This is 
common sense. We do not take the drunkard, the 
rake, the vile and corrupt, into our families, our bu- 
siness, or the circles of good society, until he be- 
comes changed an$ worthy of our most sacred 



In what the Remedy does not Consist. 67 

trusts. We may go out and try to reform and 
encourage these. This is our solemn duty as citi- 
zens and Christians. Our public assemblies — the 
preaching of the gospel — benevolent associations — 
and thousands of other means are employed for this 
purpose. But we dare not take them in without 
change. Like the viper warmed in the farmer's 
bosom, they will, ere long, sting with the poison of 
moral corruption. It is the very nature of sin. If 
you would put an asp in your bosom, first extract 
his teeth, or take the sack of poison from under his 
fangs. The church is just as certain to be corrupt- 
ed and disgraced, as the unchanged get into it — 
aside from doing the unchanged no good. no; 
the work of the church is in "the field" — where the 
tares and the wheat may grow together — "which is 
the world;" and her arms ought to be thrown around 
every drunkard and wretch in every community. 
It is the duty of the church to save, but only to 
save instrumentalbj, and then only in the "field" 
which is outside of her organism, but not her influ- 
ence. This is the only true, wise and safe plan, 



68 Habitual Drinking and Us Remedy. 

both for the church and the drunkard — the sinner 
of any class. 

In these respects, however, temperance organiza- 
tions differ somewhat from churches, society, family 
and business. Temperance societies are merely 
institutions of reform, not of regeneration; and 
although they might never radically reform the 
radical drunkard, yet it does not alter the genius of 
their constitution to take them in and do the best 
they can for them. If the inebriate fails in his 
resolution and pledge, the organization is not in- 
jured so much, because its design has not been 
affected. If the society long retains the backslider, 
however, she is soon injured in the eyes of the 
community, and loses her moral power for good. 
The truth is, that even here, membership depends 
upon good behavior, and thus much good is accom- 
plished, unless the failure of the inebriate deeper 
destroys self-confidence, self-respect and self-control. 








CHAPTER II. 

IX WHAT THE KEMEDY DOES CONSIST. 
I. 

X the immediate study of his spiritual condition 
and the plan of his redemption^ by the inebriate 
himself. 

It might be remarked here, before proceeding 
to the discussion of this part of our subject, that 
several schemes have been set on foot for the refor- 
mation of the drunkard, in the institution of asy- 
lums, and a regular medical treatment of the ine- 
briate. How far this scheme has been successful, is 
not absolutely known. Drunkenness is treated as 
a disease, and the victim restored by treatment, as 
from any other disease. But it has already been 
found in many instances, that these men return 
again to the fatal cup after their temporary restora- 
tion. We apprehend this is true in all cases, where 



70 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

the disease is chronic and constitutional. An inhe- 
rent appetite or taste is formed which neither time 
nor medical skill can ever entirely destroy, even in 
a physical point of view. Seclusion in an asylum, 
absence from all temptations, and constant applica- 
tion of treatment for a term of weeks, months or 
years, will, no doubt, for the time being, allay the 
inebriate's thirst and keep him from the practice 
of his sin. So of any other disease, if it is not so 
far gone as to resist every effort to appease and re- 
tard. In fact, this method of imprisonment is the 
only physical means of breaking the drunkard's 
habit for life — provided we never let him come out 
again to meet the power of temptation. The truth 
is, that drunkenness is not only a physical, but a 
moral and mental disease, as we have shown. In 
these respects it differs from mere bodily disorders 
— many of which, in themselves, are incurable. 
This two-fold disease can never be broken up, 
where it has become radical, by any earthly med- 
icine. It may be restrained, like the practice of 
insanity, within prison walls, but this is not refor- 
mation or regeneration. We have seen, too, that 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 71 

no mental medicine can cure the radical disease. 
The inebriate may reason, and the world around 
him may reason, but no earthly motive stops him. 
A ragged and wretched family — starving to death 
— will not bar his course of ruin. Hence, no school 
of medicine or discipline can cure this disease alone. 
One more step must be taken; what i-s it? It must 
be a spiritual one. We would not discourage any 
effort whatever to save the drunkard, whether phy- 
sically or mentally, but to all these must be added 
one more, and, thank God, the work can be done. 

There are many of the opinion that religion 
never cures the disease. Facts are stubborn things. 
There are not simply a few exceptions, but thous- 
ands of instances upon record of men and women, 
whom Christianity has redeemed from this curse. 
There are cases who, upon conversion, never again 
touched, tasted, or handled the unclean thing; or if 
tempted again occasionally to touch, gradually over- 
came the habit to the end. This brings us then to 
consider the first step the inebriate must take. He 
must be radically changed — converted — regenerat- 
ed. Then he is a new creature in Christ Jesus, 



72 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

whose grace is sufficient for us, and which is able to 
save to the uttermost every one that comes to Him 
by faith. It must be not simply a reformation. It 
must not be simply a trial effort — a mere profession. 
There must be a new birth of the eternal God. In 
the case of the drunkard, he has the disadvantage 
of both total natural and total practical depravity 
to contend against. But Christianity, even here, is 
omnipotent, and gains a double victory over sin. 
It demonstrates itself divine in the case of the 
drunkard, above every other condition of ruined 
and fallen man. Herein sin truly abounds, but 
grace much more abounds. Oh, if sin hath reigned 
unto death — such a death — grace reigns "through 
righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our 
Lord." 

The first step then is to bring the inebriate to 
consider his condition spiritually. He has consid- 
ered it, perhaps, in every other way conceivable. 
He has, perhaps, made spasmodic efibrts to consider 
it religiously, but he must be brought to do so thor- 
oughly. If he will not begin the work himself, he 
must be urered to it bv some one else — some true 



In what the Remedy does Consist 73 

and exemplary Christian. Enlightenment from a 
scriptural stand-point, is an essential and primary 
starting point, without which it is impossible to 
proceed. Impulses and excitements, whether reli- 
gious or not, will never accomplish the work. Spirit- 
ual knowledge of a crime is a power supernatural 
to conscience. There must be a godly sorrow, not 
a worldly sorrow, for his sin. There must be a di- 
vine faith, not a human confidence in the truth; not 
only of his condition, but in the plan of his redemp- 
tion. The inebriate must stop and reflect solemnly 
under this truth, upon his wretchedness and other 
sins, and above all to gaze from the depths of this 
awful enlightenment into the glorious light of his 
eternal hope. Eternity and Heaven, as w T ell as 
Hell, must come in to move, for all the motives of 
time and sorrow and reason have failed, and will 
continue to fail him. 

Now it is in the province of every man to take 
this first step, if he will. Even the prodigal " came 
to himself." His wretchedness and despair, his vo- 
cation and rags brought him to stop and reflect, 
like a man, upon his condition first, and then turn 



74 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

toward his Father's house. He pondered deeply 
upon his want and the course that had brought him 
to ruin; and the extremity of his life became Heav- 
en's sublime opportunity. If the reflection brought 
vividly to memory the glory of the " sweet home" 
lie had left — the inheritance he had lost — with a 
powerful determination he resolved and decided to 
go back — and went 

" While the lamp holds out to burn, 
The vilest sinner may return. " 

God sanctifies such solemn, serious reflections. 
The Spirit breathes upon it true enlightenment. 
Christ comforts the distressed seeker after the 
truth. The passions cool down, though Satan 
tempts and the world allures, and though the flesh 
strives ior the "mastery." A grand exertion of 
rational strength and a powerful excitement of the 
moral emotions are produced under these tremen- 
dous convictions of spiritual truth. An all-import- 
ant, an essential step is taken in the direction of 
Hope and Life, as well as Reform. Be of good 
courage, poor lost inebriate; and thou Believer, 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 75 

come up to the help of the Lord against the mighty, 
and for the sake of thy ruined fellow-creature. 

What a field of charity, as well as reformation and 
salvation ! How many stars may a man add to his 
crown here! The drunkard's soul is as precious as 
that of the Magdalene whom much was forgiven; 
and he who adds such a star, adds a jewel of infinite 
lustre to the diadem of Jesus. "Simon, I have 
somewhat to say unto you." "Say on, Master." 
"There was a certain creditor," etc. Let every 
Pharisee turn and read Luke vii. 36-50. 0, Jesus, 
thou lovest the vilest sinner upon earth. Shall the 
Master's servants love any of them less than He? 
"Come up to the help of the Lord against the 
mighty;" and come up to the help of the helpless 
for the Lord, for the salvation of never-dying but 
precious souls, no matter how degraded, or ruined, 
or lost. 



CHAPTER III. 



IN WHAT THE REMEDY DOES CONSIST CONTINUED. 



II. 




HE remedy consists in the formation of a 
most solemn resolution and purpose, "in the 
heart of hearts" — to abandon the habit by the 
help of God, ivithout pledge or promise. 
Prayer must take the place of vows and prom- 
ises; for prayer prevails alone with Omnipotence. 
I doubt whether the gospel inculcates the doctrine 
of vows and self-made obligations. Jesus tells us 
to "watch" and "pray" None of us know what we 
will do under the power of temptation, if w 7 e are 
depending in any sense upon the moral force of an 
obligation. "We have seen Peter thrice promise 
allegiance to Christ. We have seen him thrice 
break it, and swear he did not know his Lord. 
Beware of Peter's word. Grace must take the 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 77 

place of oaths — " for by grace are ye saved through 
faith, and that not of yourself: it is the gift of God/' 
After all, it is not by our own efforts that we are 
saved, although we are not saved without those 
efforts. At all events, then, there will be no broken 
vows in heaven, where millions are now registered, 
and underscored a thousand times with perjury. 
We want here PURPOSE, the grandest motive 
which springs out of true enlightenment in the con- 
ception of our difficult}'. We want a resolute decision 
of the whole man to forever discard alcohol, in any form, 
as a medicine or a beverage, no matter by whom nor for 
what administered. This must be the purpose formed 
under the truth. Even if death is the consequence, 
it will be infmely better to die in the triumphs of 
victory over a damning habit, than to die under the 
curse of it. Like Hernando Cortes at Vera Cruz, 
burn the ships of sin and temptation behind your 
resolutions and cut off all retreat, under the grace 
of God, back to the land of your former vices. 
There are many christian examples who have thus 
died, rather than go back, under the flattering illu- 
sions of the drunkard's syren, whose song had well 



78 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

nigh drawn her victims into the foul clutches of an 
inextricable and eternal ruin. 

Under this point of view there must never be a 
subsequent period in the life of the reformed and 
regenerate inebriate in which this purpose must be 
relaxed. Thousands have fallen here, or have been 
seriously retarded in their life of reformation and 
usefulness. One of the temptations of Satan is, by 
and by, to flatter a man that he is now strong 
enough — that he can now touch with impunity — 
that a christian man ought not to deny himself of a 
medicine or beverage which many clever worldly 
gentlemen use without danger. It will not do. 
Lips once accustomed to the burning cup of intoxi- 
cation can never touch again without the danger of a 
fall. The seeds of habit are never eradicated from 
the flesh of the best christian upon earth. These 
seeds may be kept down by the grace of God, the 
plow of prayer and the harrow of effort; but the 
least indulgence will make them crop out again, 
and the christian's struggle is only doubled with 
scalding tears and burning agonies. If he falls to 
ruin again, the fact only demonstrates that his work 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 79 

was not radical and must be done over again, or be 
lost. Our resolve must never be relaxed, but ever 
intensified. Our danger lies in the fact that we feel 
strong, "Let him that thinketh he standeth, take 
heed, lest he fall." The sot who had joined the 
Knights of Jericho, and who had run well for a 
while, was so satisfied with himself and his progress 
one day, that, on passing a saloon, he concluded he 
would "treat Ms pledge" Unfortunately, he treated 
his old habit, and was drunk in the gutter in less 
than an hour. Such is the history of thousands. 
The purpose must ever be strengthened — never, 
never for one moment relaxed. 

III. 

The Remedy consists again in the selection of one or 
more pious, godly friends who, like brothers, will help the 
inebriate's tveaknesses and bear his infirmities. 

There is a power in true friendship to give mo- 
tive, when that friendship is deep, sincere, sancti- 
fied. A friend is one who will tell a man his faults 
and then help him out of them. There are thous- 
ands of lynx-eyed censors — FRIENDS — who see 



80 Habitual Drinking and Us Remedy. 

and lament and mourn over your faults, and who 

portray them to the world and to your injury — 

mayhap to their own advantage — but who never help 

\ of your troubles. They watch you, like hawks, 

watching for prey. Some of them are exceedingly 
pious in tears and smiles and habit when they talk 
about your sins behind your back — and that they 
ever take occasion to do — but they never come to 
you and take you by the hand and lift you out of 
the gutter — unless it pays to Jo so. These sanctimo- 
nious, though perhaps externally consistent. Phari- 
sees, are always exceedingly selfish, and lavish of 
forgiveness, forbearance and attentions, if family 
interest or connections are involved. This class of 
friends have done some good, perhaps, in keeping 
the unwary watchful; but they have made thous- 
ands of men misanthropes and infidels who have felt 
that there is less charity in christians often, than in 
the world. Here the unfortunate victims of habit 
are mistaken, for this is not true Christianity, from 
the practice of which they draw their conclusions. 

Again, there are thousands of clever men and 
women who are willino- to help the unfortunate, 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 81 

provided they do not come in contact with them. 
"Systematic Benevolence!" They are willing to give 
a little money to such charitable persons and institu- 
tions as will trouble themselves to aid human in- 
firmities and redeem lost souls, but they can make 
no effort, not even smile on the wretched sot, much 
less deign to take him by the hand and give a word 
of warning or comfort Many of this class are 
christians and christian ministers — nay, churches 
who elbow the poor to the back pews, or out of the 
door, and who would feel contaminated if a miser- 
able drunkard or harlot should come into their 
houses of worship. - This is very much like Christ! 
He made the poor the chief object of his ministry, 
and publicans and sinners were his companions, of 
course for their good. The idea of these so-called 
churches, ministers and christians is simply this: 
""We are holier than thou." " We are the elite." "We 
can violate no taste or propriety by having the poor, 
the unfortunate, or the once fallen in our feUoicship 
and communion" They are sometimes open com- 
munionists, too. "Let these vile and uncultivated 
creatures go off' to themselves, where, plebian like, 



S2 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy, 

they will feel at home with themselves/' "We will 
pay anybody who will make the sacrifice to minis- 
ter to them." " God bless the poor and the wretch- 
ed — but they had better be to themselves" Sys: 
— charitable — Christianity! TSo wonder so few are 
redeemed! Ko wonder there are so many so-called 
churches — the mere embodiment of pride, corrup- 
tion iMl-:l SrirUhLc^! 

Ah! it is true friend: s 9 power to the 

motive of the reformer. I; Lb the love of God which, 
above the terrors of the law, at last wins the sinner 
and lifts him up; and the disinterested friendship 
of man to man is tl|e only earthly thing like unto 
:"_r CL:i~: : : ~ . H :-l: is a s; :^i ;• 

tear, shed npon our misfortunes, our wretchedne — . 
our poverty, our sins! How it elevates the low 
man of earth, to see his superiors stooping wn to 
him, condescending to his low estate, and lifting 
him to a level with the respectability of the world 
and to a hope for the future! And thus the Church 
of Christ is ordained to weep, to pray, to toil over a 
lost world; and with loving and brotherly ha: 
lead it back through a gospel of love, to a loving 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 83 

and living Savior. Yes, the christian individually 
must be the friend of the sinner — especially the 
inebriate. To this friend the inebriate must cling 
— ever fly for counsel — from the appearance of evil 
— even at the hour of midnight. That friend in 
such a need, is a friend indeed; and he must watch 
over and pray with his protege. The wreck of 
intemperance is as helpless as the babe in the 
mother's lap. 

ye churches of the living God; ye children of 
eternal hope ; ye ministers of light, what promises 
here of blessings and rewards to you, that "bread 
cast upon the waters shall return after many days;" 
that they "who turn many to righteousness shall be 
as the stars forever;" that he " who converts a sinner 
from the error of his way shall save a soul from 
death, and hide a multitude of sins!" "It is not 
a vain thing," as some think, "to serve God." "No 
labor in the Lord is in vain." 



*?£ Z ^* 






ZAPTER IV. 

RE1TCBT CONSISTS COM1ALED. 

rr. 



^# T": 



~t :i ; 7.^7 t 
a reformer is 

ri: is :.:. 1 ~;. 
is :-. r^Tir^, 
his s; :.. \ ::: 
-: 7s in 7L7 
^::~ '; 77^:17 
". : ■■ :•:-.". t.ss : :-:..y 
often, or peri 



irnish it with desires which 

:iir. TLt ~::.- ;i_::_:"— - :: 
: :;.:.;-- :: Lis :; ::.;-: ::^::> 

E-TTiii.'.T is ::.is ttit. i: 7.7 
:. Zt i: ;.:'...— :irz. ~i:i: 

~r;.k: 7.17 7 t"tL :1tSt 7777-r 

rTJlrilr^ L-^l 7 r - : 7 *i 7 ~iii 

l again under the power of 

,rT hL'.I.J. 77 rr~S17rl 717 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 85 

every oft-recurring season, constitutional to habit, 
brings back the memory and power of every vice. 
How the nerves of the tobacco chewer reaches out 
every morning, as he rises from his bed, for their 
required stimulus! The same is true of the opium- 
eater and the dram-drinker. Habit, at certain times, 
rises up, like an iron-sceptered tyrant, and demands 
of us whatever we are accustomed to gratify this 
monarch of the profligate soul with. For a long 
period in the history of the reformer this will be 
true. It often takes the same time to break a habit 
that it did to form it. Nay, often longer, for it is 
much easier to contract, than it is to retract. But 
whatever be the times and seasons through which 
we must go to reach reform and happiness, we 
must be patient, and ever avoid the evil association 
of seasons and times which arouse again the power 
of habit. 

But the great danger of the reformer lies in the 
company of bad men. The company of evil he must 
shun as he would the companionship of devils. 
There are evil associations which ruin us from de- 
sign. There are demons incarnate who lay wait 



86 Habitual Drinking and its Bemedy. 

for our souls, especially when we would make an 
effort to save ourselves. There are those who hate 
us through jealousy, because they envy us our suc- 
cess, or prosperity. There are those who despise 
our good character and our virtues, and who are 
made to feel ugly by the beauty of our lives. These 
would ruin us from malice aforethought. These are 
genuine murderers. But there are wanton destroy- 
ers of our souls, who mock all our good resolutions 
and intentions, who hate God and religion, and 
every good thing. These have not the love of truth 
in their hearts, nor the fear of God nor the good of 
man before their eyes. They mean to do evil and 
evil only; nor would they scruple to drag angels 
down to hell. Their trade is vice. Their vocation 
is ruin. Beware, above all things, the seducer, of 
any character whatever. Among this class of evil 
companionship the inebriate will always find his 
familiar old chum, the rum-seller — often the prince 
of devils and murderers himself. The most cool, 
cruel, hard-hearted murderers upon earth are gen- 
erally liquor retailers, whose trade is death. 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 87 



The Remedy consists in searching the Scriptures dili- 
gently and perpetually. 

There is a motive power unto life in the word of 
God — honestly read and constantly searched. It is 
the "savor of life unto life" to the sincere seeker; 
the "3word of the Spirit" in smiting off the chains 
of darkness and of sin; the looking-glass which 
mirrors the guilty soul ; the unerring needle which 
points to the cross; the revelation of eternal hope; 
"the power of God unto salvation." It displays the 
iniquity of the sinner's — the drunkard's — heart in 
all its grossness and enormity; and above all, it dis- 
plays Christ, the REMEDY, in all his beauty, glory 
and saving efficacy. Make the Bible your compan- 
ion. God's truth is "spirit and life" — the most 
powerful of all motive instrumentality left to mor- 
tal man. Put a Bible in thy pocket instead of a 
bottle, nor let the latter ever take the place of the 
former again; and my word for it, if the contents of 
God's word are as eagerly and constantly devoured 
as those of the bottle have been, the water of life 



88 Habitual Drinking and its Bemedy. 

will soon wash out the poison of death forever. 
There is no companionship so blessed as the Word 
of God. The inspired Psalmist declared no greater 

truth than this: 

11 Happy the man, 
Who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, 

Xor stands in the way of sinners, 
Xor sits in the seats of scoffers ; 
But in the law of Jehovah is his delight, 
And in his law he meditates day and night. 
And he shall be as a tree planted by the water- 
TV hi eh yields its fruit in its season ; [courses, 
And his leaf shall not wither, 
And whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. " 

VI. 

The Hem seeking "Jesus only" as the 

goal of all 

The cross must be the end of every step, for there 
is no hope to the drunkard, either in time or eternity, 

>rt of it. The drunkard's is truly a desperate 
case. But the cross alone can heal any and every 
sin — blot out any and every iniquity. Just one inch 
short of this, and we had as well never made the 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 89 

start. The return back to the bosom of habit, will 
be a fearful recoil, from which, perhaps, the inebri- 
ate will never recover. The cross ! the cross ! Oh, it 
is in the sight of the most wretched and miserable 
and debased! Look up! look aloft! push on with 
all thy life, thou worst of prodigals and wanderers 
from God. "Agonize to enter in at the strait gate; 
for many shall seek to enter in and shall not be 
able." Christ is the " Phj-sician of the Soul/' and 
can make the foulest clean. He is the " Balm of 
Gilead," and can cure the deepest wound, though 
" from the sole of the foot even unto the head there 
is no soundness in thee; but wounds and bruises 
and putrifying sores." Yea, " though your sins be 
as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though 
they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." 
Grace, " amazing grace" is the spirit's crown of every 
motive; and it will overcome, through faith, the 
world, the flesh, the devil. It was grace that chang- 
ed a Mary Magdalene, a John Bunyan, a noble 
Dawson, and thousands of the most depraved drunk- 
ards and harlots that ever blighted the fair face of 
the green earth. In many instances it has raised 



90 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

them up to the most exalted positions of honor, 
trust and usefulness, even while they have lived 
here below. 

This is the divinely implanted motive; and which 
height nor depth can ever sound, or change, or take 
away. The two grand innate motives of the soul are 
responsibility and hope. It is grace alone that can 
re-inspire these in the besotted heart which has long 
since lost the fear of punishment, or the hope of re- 
ward. Then, in Christ, the inebriate is safe; "for 
your life is hid with Christ in God." "Nothing" 
says Paul, "can separate us from the love of God 
which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord." An Adam or 
an Eve, outside of Christ, could fall — be separated 
from the love of God; but not so with the blood- 
bought and blood-washed sinner, though he might 
have been the vilest drunkard beneath the sun. 
How sublime and practical the truth, that the most 
hopeless inebriate indeed may thus become the 
most exalted son of God — the native of the skies — 
"an heir of glory!" How potent, then, the motive 
to seek the Savior! How unfailing his all-potent 
energy to save, under his ordained instrumental- 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 



91 



ities! He could save without these, but these are 
in his plan, and He promises to aid and render effi- 
cient the slightest effort, as well as give the motives 
we have laid down. This is a certain and sure 
Remedy. Christ is a true, tried, precious, elect, 
corner-stone — a "sure foundation" — laid in Zion. 
"Other foundation can no man lay." 

In conclusion, "come to Christ" "The Spirit and 
the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, 
Come! And let him that is athirst say, COME! 
And whosoever will, let him take of the WATER 
OF LIFE freely. 



^fcv <&1 ^ K?> ^\ 



IN WHAT THE REMEDY CONSISTS — CONTINUED. 

VII. 
^(^fe^l^^L^Y, the Remedy consists in following 



£rf:j When the inebriate is fully assured of his 
conversion, as he will be, then he must take up 
the cross, where his Master laid it down, and fol- 
low after. Having been washed in the bath of re- 
generation, having been buried to sin, having risen 
again to newness of life, he must symbolize, before 
the world, the workings of grace in his soul, and 
his hopes for the future, by a public profession of 
faith in baptism. This is a solemn step. It speaks 
volumes from the past; it promises volumes for the 
future. It is the oath of allegiance to Jesus Christ 
in this life, and in his kingdom here below. It is 
the celebration of the marriage banns between the 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 93 

"new creature" and Christ — the bride and the 
bridegroom — in the plighting of mental vows and 
in that symbolization of that vital union, already 
formed, in which Christ is "flesh of our flesh, and 
bone of our bone." This, God ordains. The redeem- 
ed must become a member of the church, the " body of 
Christ" — the temple of living and polished stones. 
There is a strong reason for this. These "lively 
stones" grow together, and each supplies strength 
to the other, as well as compactness to the whole. 
The regenerate is a "smooth ashler" now, and how- 
ever small, there is a place for him in the temple. 
No "rough ashler" could find a place, nor could he 
fit the building if he did. Solomon's temple, which, 
in this respect, is a type of the church, was built 
without the sound of the hammer; and every stone 
which went into it was prepared at the quarry, ac- 
cording to the pattern of the master, by the work- 
men. So the christian, before he becomes a part 
of this antitype, more important still, must be pre- 
pared from the quarries of sin, under the chisel and 
hammer of the master workmen, which are the Word 
of God, and ground smoothly by the mills of repent- 



94 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

ance. But when this is done, the stone must enter. 
It is polished and living. 

But the work is but begun. Trial and temptation 
— sharp and strong — will be sure to test this m-born 
and neiv-bom motive, which is JESUS. Satan, the 
world, the flesh, all hate Jesus. Putting on Christ 
is the signal for attack. The devil hates, the world 
revolts, the flesh writhes under Christ, and the on- 
sets of subsequent life will be furious to the con- 
verted, once habituated to fearful, besetting sins. 
All this, too, is ordained of God. Here is a free 
gift, but it must be won, even by the weakest sol- 
dier in the ranks of Immanuel. The fire-proof of 
the cross is the test of the christian. If Christ suf- 
fered, was tempted, buffeted, had to pray, and weep, 
and watch, and toil, so must all his followers. Other- 
wise we would never know that we were saved by 
grace, or feel and know our dependence, or realize 
those christian graces by which the christian is dis- 
tinguished. God puts all his children in the cruci- 
ble, and then puts the crucible on the fire to test the 
genuineness of our faith, which is more precious 
than gold tried in the fire. A tried faith alone is 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 95 

valuable. We must "work out" — that is, demon- 
strate — prove our own salvation, for it is God who 
worketh in us both to will and to do of his own 
good pleasure." We must make our "calling and 
election sure" — that is, sure to ourselves. It takes 
the trials of life to demonstrate the genuineness of 
an election — the assurance of our salvation. "Sure- 
ly, this is fearful," the inebriate will say, but there 
is a sweet consolation in it after all. 

If Jesus is truly conceived within us — "the hope 
of glory" — the motive nor the work can ever be 
shaken; although diligence upon the service of 
God's house and the vigilance of private devotion 
are the tests of christian constancy, the price of 
christian consistency and the evidence of christian 
birth. In the whole struggle, our weapons and 
strength are not our own. God supplies our defi- 
ciencies and stimulates our energies. Otherwise 
no christian would ever battle through. We are 
God's workmanship, "ordained" to do good works. 
The christian is God's machine — ever impelled in 
our activities by the inborn motives of faith and 
love, even in our coldest and most trying moments. 



96 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

Added to all our graces is labor — perpetual exer- 
tion for good — and Satan finds but little room or 
time to vex the feeblest saint. Although the seeds 
of former habit will ever remain in the flesh, like 
the nail-prints in the post, yet labor omnia vincet is 
as true in religion as in the business of life. Let 
the regenerated drunkard work for his Savior, as 
well as trust him, and his faith through grace will 
be sufficient for every weakness and trial. Christ 
will bring him out of six troubles, and he will not 
forsake him in the seventh. " The steps of a good 
man are ordered by the Lord," and "though he fall, 
he shall not utterly be cast down." God promises 
to aid, c oid fort and hold up his children; to allow 
no temptation to assail us "above that we are able 
to bear;" to always "make a way for our escape;" 
and to bring us all off', if we are his, "more than 
conquerors through him that loved us." 

CONCLUSION. 

Xow farewell, friendly reader. It may be that 
you are one of the unfortunates, to whom this little 
work is addressed. You may think it is a long and 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 97 

arduous task imposed for reformation and salvation. 
So it is, but it is your only hope. There is no 
other way. You must remember that the way of 
the transgressor has been long and hard. " Wide is 
the gate and broad is the way which leadeth to destruc- 
tion, and many there be that go in thereat: for strait is 
the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth into life, 
and few there be that Pud it" But you must go in at 
the strait gate and walk the narrow way. This 
is the only route to hope and to heaven: and self- 
denial and fidelity are the only plan for breaking up 
your fearful habit. Christ is the narrow way — the 
strait gate involves the agonizing struggle to over- 
come self in the entrance. 

But suppose the effort is a hard one. Every 
effort which accomplishes any great end is a hard 
one. Everything valuable is attained by a cross of 
some kind. Nothing worthy of human regard was 
ever attained without it. In the present case, there 
is a sublime end to be accomplished! The salvation 
of your immortal soul — the attainment of joy and 
peace and rest of spirit, both in time and eternity. 
If you do not attain these, you incur the infinite 



98 Habitual Drinking and its Remedy. 

and eternal loss of all. Even amid the struggle, th<> 
peace and the hope of a christian, for a single hour, 
is worth all the pleasures and gratifications of " sin 
for a season/"' which you enjoy in a life-time. Be- 
sides, these are no compensation for your miseries 
which, as a hopeful christian, you would never feel 
again. 

And now, perhaps you will say, "I am not a con- 
firmed drunkard. " If not, for heaven's sake, stop! 
You may become one, and then — "O, I'll adopt 
your plan of salvation, if I ever do." Xinety-nine 
chances to one, you would not if you could. How 
many will be saved by this piece of advice? Most 
of those confirmed are just like you, now. Delusive 
as it is, they expect to do better yet — and hell is 
peopled with these — all of whom once had, and per- 
haps died with, these good intentions. These future 
intentions are the refuge of lies, behind which the 
soul shields itself from every instrumentality to save 
itself. God asks no future intentions. He asks fo'* 
present purposes. " Xow ! " " To-day ! " God seems 
to be in a hurry about but one thing — the human 
soul. That one thing is always in a hurry about 



In what the Remedy does Consist. 99 

everything else. " Behold, I stand at the door and 
knock" Rap, rap, rap! Oh! drunkard, dram-drink- 
er, sinner, open unto Him. Every hour you wait 
your tearful habit is gaining strength, binding faster 
his slavish chains and fixing your fearful doom. 




